by Ian D’Agata
In viticulture and the world of wine in general, a ‘field blend’ refers to wines made from a mixture of grapes (and at times, quite the hodgepodge) picked from grapevines all grown in the same vineyard plot. In other words, a field of different vines the grapes of which are picked all at the same time and then fermented together. The reasoning for this (or as some might venture to say, the lack of reasoning) is that centuries ago this is the way grapes grew while mono-variety vineyards are a thing of these big bad modern times and aren’t in touch with nature. Or you know, something to the effect of ‘out with the new, and in with the old’, when everything was so much better. But is that premise even true? And are wines made with field blends better than those made by more conventional modern-day plantings? From the corner of the discussion room where I stand, the answer is a very clear ‘no’ on almost all counts of that discussion. In fact, logic alone tells me, and should tell all of us, that the concept behind field blends makes little or any sense. It follows that it would therefore be very strange if the ensuing wines would be any good. But given that some wines deriving from field blends of different grape varieties are instead quite good, the question arises: are such wines just a case of the exception proving the rule right or are field blends a fashionable gimmick soon to go the way of the dodo?
